The Middle East Loves Hello!

None of us involved with Hello! Messenger could have predicted how quickly the application would take off. We were released onto iTunes just two weeks and 2 days ago, yet there have been 10,000’s of downloads and registered users in that time. We went from zero to number 1 app in Kuwait within two weeks. Today, we are the number one social app in Saudi Arabia … 9th most popular free app in that country and still rising up the charts.

I don’t think any one of us had predicted that the Middle East would be the place where the application was most quickly adopted, however it is logical if you think about it. These are wealthy countries, with educated & English speaking nationals. iPhones per capita are probably amongst the highest in the world here. Not only that, but a social application like Hello! Messenger needs a critical mass before it really takes off in a country. Kuwait has a relatively small population so achieved this critical mass the quickest. From Kuwait it is logical that it then spread to Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Gulf region. Nearly everyone these days has friends abroad and so we feel confident that the adoption of Hello! will continue to spread.

There are still far more American users of Hello! than any other nation, however as a percentage of the iPhone population there we are still very small. We can’t wait to get that snowball really moving over the coming weeks!

All this is happening despite us having some more cards to play to make the application even more attractive. A Blackberry version will be released soon, followed by some language packs and some cool functionality that we are sure sets us apart from the competition and that the users will love. Not to mention the Android app coming in May. We haven’t forgotten Nokia (Symbian) either.